This month our librarians, Irwin and Hugo, present us with a few of their own picks from AF’s médiathèque titles: a novel,
a traveler’s tale, and a comic book. They are all in connection with recent news and, in the frame of International Women’s Day, bring
forward two female authors.
Albert Camus, La Peste
(The Plague)
A timely read amidst our battle against the current epidemic. Albert Camus, the 1957 Nobel Prize recipient whose chef d’oeuvre « L’Étranger » figures amongst the most sought books in Library, tells the story about a plague sweeping an Algerian city in the 40s. You will be amazed how much this cautionary tale, though fictitious and set in a different epoch, still resonates with the many of us.
Ella Maillart, Envoyée spéciale en Mandchourie
(Correspondent in Manchuria)
In 1934, the French-speaking Swiss journalist and explorer Ella Maillart travelled through Manchukuo, the puppet-state created three years
earlier by the Japanese in Northern China. Living among the diverse locals (Chinese, Japanese, White Russians…), she took numerous
photographs, reproduced in the book. A great travel story, but also a valuable historical document.
Claire Bretécher, Les Frustrés (The Frustrated ones)
The French female comic book artist Claire Bretécher passed away last month. Les Frustrés is one of her most famous works: made of
one-page stories, it is a biting satire of post-68 France, dealing with themes such as feminism, sexual liberation, psychoanalysis, leftism,
etc. To the point that its “sociological insight” was even praised by academics!
